Last night, Sarah Palin tweeted her recommendation that everyone read an article by prominent incorrect thinker Thomas Sowell in which he compares Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler and his establishment of the B.P. cleanup fund to Nazi economic principles. Sarah Palin evidently considers these ideas to be merit-worthy, as opposed to preposterous on their face. The article in question is called “Is U.S. Now on Slippery Slope to Tyranny?” and its thesis is that it is unconstitutional for Obama to hold B.P. responsible for the oil-spill cleanup. The $20 billion the company put in escrow is the equivalent of Obama personally confiscating private property. Although, even Sowell admits, “[t]echnically, it has not been confiscated by Barack Obama.” Whatever, isn’t this exactly what Hitler did? Confiscate the capital of an increasingly ignorant citizenry? Spoiler alert: totally. The Reichstag passed laws that “gave Hitler dictatorial powers that were used for things going far beyond the relief of the German people—indeed, powers that ultimately brought a rain of destruction down on the German people and on others,” according to Sowell. That is basically the whole argument, plus some more hedging and an almost unreadable, frenetic structure.

While there is a sane (if unpopular) argument to be made that the federal government has overstepped its bounds in dictating terms to B.P., most observers appear capable of separating their concerns about excessive intervention from the fear that Obama will initiate a policy of genocidal mass-murder.